In many applications it may be necessary and/or desirable to generate light.
Different optical components are well known in the art for generating light. By way of example but not limitation, semiconductor lasers, such as vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSEL's), are well known in the art for generating light. Depending on the particular construction used, the light source may emit light across different portions of the wavelength spectrum. By way of example, many semiconductor-based light sources emit light across a relatively narrow portion of the wavelength spectrum. However, in many applications it may be necessary and/or desirable to provide a semiconductor light source which emits light across a relatively broad band of wavelengths.
The present invention is directed to a novel semiconductor light source for emitting light across an extended optical bandwidth.